Cheap Dive Watches

However, if your goal is the best deal on a reasonably priced watch made for scuba diving, that’s precise, reliable, holds up at depth, and can endure less than gentle handling, then read on.

Inexpensive doesn’t have to mean poor quality, and you won’t find watches anywhere on this site that we don’t believe to be appropriate for diving. Our goal is to provide the best possible model selection in several price ranges.

Browse all our categories for many more selections

Divers know why, but for others wanting a better understanding, here’s what can happen if your dive watch fails at depth and you have no backup.

First, a brief background on what happens while breathing at depth. During a dive, the body tissues absorb nitrogen from the breathing gas in proportion to the surrounding pressure. As long as the diver remains at pressure, the gas presents no problem. If the pressure is reduced too quickly however, the nitrogen comes out of solution and forms bubbles in the tissues and bloodstream. This commonly occurs as a result of violating or approaching too closely the diving table limits.

Bubbles forming in or near joints are the presumed cause of the joint pain of a classical "bend." When high levels of bubbles occur, complex reactions can take place in the body, usually in the spinal cord or brain. Numbness, paralysis and disorders of higher cerebral function may result. If great amounts of decompression are missed and large numbers of bubbles enter the venous bloodstream, congestive symptoms in the lung and circulatory shock can then occur.

So lets assume a diver is using his dive watch as his only timing device (no computer or other backup timer). He’s at say 110 feet of depth and doesn’t realize his watch has failed. After awhile he registers that the time displayed hasn’t changed the last couple times he checked it.

At this point he no longer knows if he’s passed beyond the limits of a no-decompression dive and if he has, he has no way of telling how long to decompress (or measure it), nor how many deco stops are required. If he stayed down long enough he also doesn’t have enough air to breathe while decompressing.

Sooner or later, he has to surface and even if he breathes his tank dry at a minimum safety stop he really has no choice but to chance it and come on up. Depending on how much help, if any, he was able to get from his buddy in determining bottom time and providing additional air, it is more than likely he will suffer some level of decompression illness (DCI) otherwise known as the bends.

From the earlier background discussion, you can infer that the amount of nitrogen bubbles remaining in his bloodstream will impact the severity of his DCI. He could experience a painfully crippling injury or even death.

Bottom line is not to take chances with your dive watch or any other gear on which your life may depend. When diving, Murphy’s Law is in full effect. There are a myriad of things that can and sometimes do go wrong. Why add to that list, things you can actually do something about?